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Story:Out to Sea
Indiscriminate destruction. Two words utterly inadequate to describe the degree of devastation inflicted in the war on the cusp of the twenty-first century. Entire cities burnt, rendered into radioactive wastes, countries sickened by experimental plagues, lakes and rivers poisoned, islands and coastlines drowned in a changing climate. How to respond to Armageddon? For most, the splintered states of the world strive to capture their old normality. The flag of peace is raised, silent, over the shells of dead cities. Universally, it is agreed that no such weapons will be used again. In secret, government and private manufacturers work in a frenzy to provide themselves with armaments to protect the broken remnants: engineering to alter humans to exist in the next world, if it comes, defences against the inevitable breaking of the new treaties, and weapons that can be directed, for each decides that they must be the ones who strike first. The Laboratories are one such facility, dedicated to the construction of genetically and mechanically enhanced super-soldiers. To the question of direction, their answer is simple: make use of the malleable minds of children to create a generation of weapons who can think and obey orders. An Idiot with a Surfboard Stories centred around Doctor David Atua: consultant child psychiatrist, liar, surfer and professional danger junkie. David is a laid-back scientist employed by the Laboratories to consult on their most recalcitrant cases. When crude methods such as emotional abuse, physicial threats, torture and genetic manipulation fail to obtain results, he is called to solve the problem with his creative approach to children. David views each Experiment as both child and puzzle, the more strange, unique and dangerous the better. Works are listed in recommended reading order. The Scientist and the Sea (novella) Everyday life for Doctor David Atua means five cases no one else can solve. Three children are dead, and only then do they ask him how to save the fourth. In the depths of the Labs, a child's screams are devouring a Division. Another child terrorises the Labs with phantasmagorical creatures that can't be seen. If he lets his thoughts wander on these, his own Experiment will see them. All the while something terrible is happening slowly to his favourite Experiment. Is there anything that could be more fun than this? Riptide (short story) After the events of The Scientist and the Sea, David travels back to his home and plays bad guitar to his sort-of girlfriend, Lily. Beautiful Minds (short story) The introductory story to Evie, an Experiment who can see minds. The first work written in this universe. No Endings and No Good-byes (short story) When David was eighteen, he almost entirely failed to tell Lily that he was moving to the mainland to attend medical school. A short story demonstrating that David has always been an idiot with a surfboard, though he is a better liar now. Nobody's Safety Guaranteed (novel) Seven years after The Scientist and the Sea, David is beset on all sides at the Laboratories. His job is under pressure, his pager won't stop going off, his colleague hates him, Experiments are going haywire (more than usual), and he'd still rather be at work than at home. If he can avoid drowning under all of these, then perhaps - just perhaps - he can stop whatever it is that is creeping through the Labs and driving Experiments to suicide. A novel with two intertwining perspectives, David and the Experiment "You", about parenthood, responsibility and there never being enough time. When He Smiles (short story) A case from the other side of the glass. A note on chronology: No Endings and No Good-byes ➡ Beautiful Minds ➡ When He Smiles ➡ The Scientist and the Sea ➡ Riptide ➡ Lazarus ➡ Nobody's Safety Guaranteed. By other authors Another Scientist - by ScatheMote Somewhere, in an underfunded children's hospital in a nameless American city, another David Atua tries to comfort a girl dying of cancer. Other stories Ashes to Ashes (short story) Introductory story for Irina, an Experiment with the uncontrollable power of disintegration. Originally written for Extraordinary Children. Birthday Party (short story) Two escaped Experiments celebrate a birthday for the first time. Originally written as a write-up of an Extraordinary Children roleplay. Irina An unusual character page for one of the Experiments. Fragments Assorted bits and pieces related to the setting. Lazarus - by ScatheMote Fourteen classified documents detail the escape and recapture of Experiment #1143, Lazarus. Not to be circulated among the general public. Setting Gajahpalau Once the jewel of the Arabesque Sea, the tiny island citystate of Gajahpalau was an opulent tropical paradise with wealth and technology that far overshadowed its more populous neighbours. With a highly equipped military, regimented society and the cutting-edge of weapons technology, it was able to hold out against envious nations for more than a century. Naturally, this made it an enticing target. Gajahpalau was the first victim of the war. In less than a day, the inhabitants of the city were wiped out in an event that is still not understood. Inexplicable, the attack was described as; something that was not known to be either chemical or biological, that left no damage on Gajahpalua's environment or the city itself, but erased every human being from its borders. Even as city after city was lost to subsequent attacks, inexplicable remains Gajahpalau's end, the likes of which have never been repeated. Following the war, the island was reclaimed by Kwandou. Resettlement was not attempted due to concerns regarding lingering effects of the attack, which could not be investigated on Kwandou's sorely tested budget in the post-war period. It was placed under quarantine and then eventually sold to a private contractor. The Laboratories A private military facility that was founded approximately thirty-five years prior to the events of The Scientist and the Sea, and the setting of most of the stories. The original founders of the Labs - Director Ernst, Professor Craig, Doctor Garner, Doctor Wilkin and Professor Freiman - pooled together funds to build the first iteration of the Labs in the ruins of Gajahpalau with permission from the Kwandouan government. The first twenty military grade Experiments were also promised to Kwandou as payment. For three years, they subsisted largely off Ernst's diminishing family fortunes, until the first breakthrough in experimental procedures which resulted in the creation of the first stable Experiments. From a single, squat building, the Labs have since grown to a fifteen-storey monstrosity that sprawls over a square kilometre. Surrounding the Labs is a steadily growing array of residences, shops and military facilities which have sprung up to support it. The Experiment programme has been a wild success, with more than one thousand successful super-soldiers having been created by the time of NSG. Experiments that have completed their training are sold to the highest bidder, usually one of the major world governments. The profits are such that the Labs have easily managed to purchase the island of Gajahpalau itself. Motu Usually referred to as The Island by natives of it (a name that also refers to the central archipelago), Motu actually consists of a chain of approximately two hundred and fifty volcanos, atolls, reefs and shoals scattered across a region of several hundred square kilometres. Located thousands of kilometres from any other land, its isolation made it one of the few places to remain totally unscathed during the war - at least physically. Heavily reliant on tourism and imports, Motu's economy collapsed several years in the war, which resulted in a mass exodus of its population in the post-war period. Following the gradual recovery of the global economy, things have improved substantially, but Motu has never recovered to pre-war levels. Many of the youth of Motu see it as a dead-end location and leave for other countries to seek their education and careers. The majority of islanders live on the largest archipelago: a disjointed spiral referred to as Koru that surrounds several dormant volcanos, including the giant Maile. Inhabitants: David, Lily, Niu Olhemaroa In the old world, Olhemaroa was often overlooked: a vast continent, but sparsely populated and infertile; a strong economy, but minuscule compared to the great nations of Zaia and Rubia; not as culturally influential as Saheli, not as ancient as Zaia, not as technologically advanced as Rubia. It was a backwater country, even in danger of being outstripped by its nearest neighbours in Kwandou. This isolation is what saved Olhemaroa. As it was spared much of the destruction that ruined the greater nations, Olhemaroa is now the most prosperous and advanced country in the world. This is not to say that it passed through unchanged: biochemical weaponry has reduced the once famous coasts of Olhemaroa into a toxic marsh that surrounds the country in a band a hundred kilometres wide, forcing the abandonment of most of its old cities. Those which were not destroyed during the war were quickly deserted due to the poisonous cyclones that are spawned periodically by the marsh. The climate has shifted to become much wetter and colder, with regular snow occurring through half of the year. Culturally, too, Olhemaroa has changed, adjusting to the demands of a population that swelled to quadruple its original size in the first post-war decade. Many of these refugees originated from Zaia and Rubia, and have sought to transform the centre of Olhemaroa into a world that resembles the one they lost. Olhemaroa is also known for its unusual fauna, which have adapted with startling alacrity to their harsh new world. It is referred to as the mainland by inhabitants of Motu, which is considered to be an external territory of Olhemaroa. Many Motuans migrate to the mainland for university or career opportunities, as David did. Inhabitants: Professor Honda, Miriam Kwandou Not every country emerged from the war destroyed. Kwandou was once thirty-six disparate nations, each with their own culture and fierce ethnic identity, scattered across an equatorial continent. These nations were, more often than not, locked in territorial disputes that ranged from outright warfare to the cold, grim battles of trade and diplomacy. In the early days of the war, these were only inflamed, and almost the entire continent took sides in the conflict. And yet, Kwandou has emerged from the broken states of the past as a unified nation. The continent has been lost in the war, physically torn apart by now banned weapons into nothing more than a peninsula and several archipelagos. The old borders lost, its people scattered to unrecognisable lands, its history and wealth dissipated, the youngest country in the world has decided to begin a new page in history. Perhaps, always having been fractured, Kwandou knew better than any other state what it is to rebuild from shattered fragments. Inhabitants: Doctor Sam Ramakrishna, Evie, Leslie, Yumiko, Seo, Akshan, Lazarus Rubia The first Rubia was the richest nation in the world. Renowned for its technological progress, peacefulness and remarkable health and education systems, Rubia portrayed itself as a shining beacon for the world. There was no better place to live than its silver cities. The best of these, to the poorer inhabitants of old Kwandou and Saheli, seemed like something out of science fiction novel: flawless, self-sufficient, impenetrable. Even at the very heights of the war, it seemed impossible that any weapon could diminish their beauty and power. The second Rubia, far vaster, lay outside the cities and blanketed the southern reaches of the continent. This was the Rubia of farms and factories, of slum-towns propping up mining and deforestation operations, a Rubia living on the edge of poverty. Breadbowl of the first Rubia, its supplier of the precious materials required by the great cities, all travelling along the great conduit of the largest river in the world. Today, only the second Rubia remains. The first Rubia was starved by carnage inflicted on the fields and mines of its lesser sibling. The river, its lifeblood, was poisoned in the third year of the war. The second Rubia has since rebounded to its old level - that which is alive will always flourish - but the artificial heights of the other Rubia cannot be reclaimed. The cities no longer gleam, and coal-fire now emerges from the once immaculate towers. Only the very wealthiest can afford to pretend that the old Rubia exists; living huddled in the very centre of the largest cities, they attend the same universities, carrying on research with increasingly shoestring budgets, a bubble within a bubble. Inhabitants: Morn, Doctor Garner, Doctor Wilkin, Dolor Saheli Disparate Saheli, long-shattered, looked likely to be the worst casualty of the war. At the outbreak of the war, Saheli existed in a state of tenuous peace between several "kingdoms" which themselves had feeble claims to a sparsely spread, semi-nomadic populace - a state of affairs that had persisted, punctuated by several spectacular collapses, since the fall of the Hummi dynasty in the seventeenth century. This illusion of unity quickly crumbled within the first few months of the war. Saheli also suffered tremendously in the post-war period, with conflicts remaining common for the three decades following the war. Two things may save Saheli from itself. Firstly, the changing climate has rejuvenated a long-depleted desert into more temperate savannah. Secondly, the improvement of mass communications technology to finally surpass pre-war levels is transforming the face of Saheli polity. Unchained from the necessities of conglomeration for trade and communication, the new face of Saheli is a resurrection of the old that no one dared hoped for: a burgeoning system of small community nodes in a web of information, shifting with the needs of a whole that is more than the sum of its parts. Saheli remains poor, but for the first time in centuries, freedom is a tangible dream. Zaia The greatest of nations prior to the war, Zaia is now the least. Zaia boasted the most ancient civilisation in the world, claiming an unbroken line since the unification of two rival kingdoms of Imazi and Galca in the early fourteenth century. Motivated by religious fervour, the empire quickly spread over the ensuing decades to cover a significant part of the continent. The cities they erected at this time were works of art and religious devotion in themselves, built in concentric circles that were each hallowed in the name of one of their many polytheistic deities. For centuries, these cities were preserved, with improvements in technology implemented invisibly so as not to disturb their ancient facade. Unlike the rest of the world, the cities of Zaia were destroyed by more standard armaments. Conventional explosives and nuclear bombs have rendered most of Zaia's once proud cities into rubble. In its arrogance, Zaia underestimated the resentment and capabilities of its own long-conquered colonies. Nor could its pride allow such an affront. Thus Zaia was fractured from within, leaving it vulnerable to the external forces which then tore it apart. The Zaians are a fierce people. Though their civilisation is a broken shell of what it once more, though many of its lands are wastelands of lingering radioactivity and bomb-scarred dirt, most of the remaining population refuse to leave. One way or another, they say, Zaia will continue. Inhabitants: Director Ernst, Anri Characters Doctor David Atua Age: 35 (in SatS), 42 (in NSG) Bio: The eponymous idiot and scientist. David is a child psychiatrist who originally hails from the Island, but has been living mostly on the mainland prior to his employment by the Labs. He grew up in an extended household with his parents, three sisters, grandparents, aunt, uncle, two cousins. Living on an island, he was essentially inseparable from the beach from the age of about 4, despite copious school complaints about skipped lessons and three near-drownings in total (at the ages of 10, 17 and 22). When he was 16, his beloved grandmother slapped some sense into him with regard to schooling, which resulted in him just scraping into medical school, mostly to please her. Unfortunately, the only medical school was on the mainland. The culture and climate shock made for an unhappy first semester, followed by several party- and drug-fuelled three years, before he sobered up to pass his final exams. He attempted a career as a paediatric haem-onc registrar, but was swiftly booted out of the programme and ended up completing training for child psychiatry instead. Despite the rigours of a medical career, David remains (or at least, makes a very good show of being) a drifter who doesn't seem to care about much apart from solving puzzles for his own enjoyment and recklessly endangering his life. When asked why he continues to work in the Labs despite understanding children better than pretty much everyone else in the building, he answers with a simple "Fun". He has a dim outlook of the majority of the Labs, as he views their methods are crude, unnecessarily brutal to children and stupid. Appearance: tall, toned and tanned, with a swimmer's build. Usually wears a labcoat over t-shirt and jeans, but if he could get away with it, he'd wear a shirt and shorts everywhere. He has a sleeve tattoo on his right arm that extends from his shoulder to forearm, featuring koru designs, waves and turtle motifs. He has dark brown eyes and black hair, worn slightly long. Doctor Tiem Huang Age: 44 (in SatS), 51 (in NSG) Lily Kaʻaukai Age: 35 (in SatS), 42 (in NSG) Bio: An artist living on the island who specialises in sculpture. Lily and David were high school sweethearts, but transitioned to an open relationship for most of their adult lives due to David's decision to move to the mainland. The word that best describes Lily is sharp: a quick mind combined with a razor tongue and deft hands. Despite her talents, Lily committed to staying on the island and attended the local university there, as she believes that chasing opportunity in Olhemaroa is a rat race. She's probably right. Enjoys David's bullshit, most of the time. Neither of them will admit it, but she is the better surfer of the two now. Miriam Zhang Age: 67 (in SatS), 74 (in NSG) Bio: Miriam was about to retire the day David joined the Labs. After seeing David nearly crash and burn with his debut cases, she decided to stay on as his secretary and/or minder. Despite her constant berating of David, she is actually quite fond of the idiot. The fondness is mutual. Miriam is also one of the most well-connected people on the Labs, by dint of both her experience and the gossip network she runs that is piggybacked onto the official memo system. She was born in Kwandou, but moved to Olhemaroa at a young age. By the time of NSG, she has managed to actually retire and thoroughly enjoys being Grace's surrogate grandmother whilst still scolding David on his days off. Richard Morn Age: 59 (in NSG) Bio: Richard Morn has served the Laboratory for eight years as caretaker and lead psychologist. Prior to working in the Labs, he served as professor and researcher at the Medical Psychology department of the University of Rubia for nineteen years, publishing several theses on ethics ecology and cognitive hierarchy theory. Well-known for his intellect, rationality, and mumbling train-of-thought speech pattern that can be almost indecipherable to newer Scientists, his non-medical perspective makes him a frequent consulting party in countless cases across the Labs. Rumors that Mr. Morn is secretly one of the members of the Laboratory Ethics Committee, the enigmatic organization that directs in no uncertain terms the nature and extent of cruelty performed on Experiments in the name of the greater good, are largely unfounded. Professor Samiksha "Sam" Ramakrishna Age: 56 (in SatS) Bio: David's old professor as a medical student, then later the programme director who kicked him out of his original training programme. A brilliant paediatric haematologist who was headhunted by the Labs due to the high occurrence of haematological malignancies in their patient population. Sam is a fiery, curtly spoken woman who is one of the few people David considers a friend in the Labs. She assisted David in obtaining a position in the Labs in the first place. Appearance: 1.5 metres of bottled Kwandouan fury. Black hair, nearly black eyes and dark skin. Doctor Jian Age: 52 (in NSG) Experiments #108 - Irina *'Age': *'Abilities': #153 - Leslie *'Age': 18 *'Abilities': Generates a feeling of impending doom and a sensation of dying, personalised to that individual. The effect appears to be both emotional and hallucinatory, with auditory and visual components. The field of effect is projected in a bubble around her, though after some practice, she has developed control over who is affected. Sufferers are almost universally incapacitated. *Leslie is a frail, intelligent girl who was the first Experiment David successfully assisted, and thus one of his favourites. Extensive experimentation with radiation has rendered her severely immunosuppressed, so she has been kept isolated in a glass cell for almost all her life. #288 - Seo *'Age': *'Abilities': #455 - Yumiko *'Age': *'Abilities': #512 - Evie *'Age': *'Abilities': #526 - Camellia *'Age': *'Abilities': #570 - Chen *'Age': *'Abilities': #590 - Kai *'Age': *'Abilities': #618 - Dolor *'Age': *'Abilities': #642 - Mikhail *'Age': 6 *'Abilities': ███████ INEFFICIENT SECURITY CLEARANCE #656 - Anri *'Age': *'Abilities': #684 *'Age': *'Abilities': #685 - Akshan *'Age': *'Abilities': #818 - Niu *'Age': *'Abilities': #888 - You *'Age': *'Abilities': #984 - Erin *'Age': 9 (in NSG) *'Abilities': Entropy Manipulation - the ability to spontaneously increase or reduce the order and arrangement of matter and energy. #1143 - Lazarus *'Age': *'Abilities': Music Playlist Acknowledgements Kind thanks to: *DSS, who inspired the original work with his ''Story:Extraordinary Children. *8bit, who created Huang, Chen, Seo, Akshan and THE TASTY TREAT, and fuels the creation of the stories as a whole with his sumptuous emoji reactions. *Rei, who created Yumiko and Camellia. *Scathe, who created Lazarus and wrote Another Scientist and Lazarus. *Crono, who created Anri. *Reni, who created Morn and Erin. *Catuse, who created Esperanso. And to all the children: congratulations!